the associate Tagged Articles at Cinematical

After resisting overtures for a decade, a best-selling author received an offer he couldn't refuse. John Grisham has finally allowed his 1999 novel The Testament to be optioned, according to Variety. Grisham will have "the right to provide creative input, which he didn't always have in the past -- one of the factors that pushed him away from Hollywood until about three years ago, when his fans prodded him to end his self-imposed movie moratorium."

The Testament revolves around a self-made billionaire who leaves his entire fortune to his illegitimate daughter, a young woman who lives and works "with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil." An attorney who's seen better days helps her battle the billionaire's relatives for the fortune. Producer Mark Johnson says: "It had the best of the courthouse stuff that John writes so well, plus this exotic adventure in deepest Brazil."

It's been six years since Runaway Jury hit the screens, so is the time right for more big-screen Grisham? I jumped off the Grisham bandwagon after The King of Torts, which had a smug, off-putting, moralistic tone; his formula -- idealistic young hero / heroine fights the corrupt system -- felt stale and predictable. If nothing else, Grisham's books offer the comfort of familiarity. Legal thrillers, the more formulaic the better, are a Hollywood staple, and usually attract a dependable audience. Shia LaBeouf is attached to The Associate, his latest best-seller, and others are in development. Will Grisham's creative input on The Testament result in a better movie?

Hey – remember when I correctly pointed out that Dan Brown's Angels & Demons was wretched, insulting nonsense, and everyone yelled at me? The consensus seemed to be that I didn't know from good populist entertainment; that I expected everything to be brainy, couldn't appreciate a good action-packed mystery, and basically should just shut up. (My favorite was when people informed me that I was wrong because Dan Brown is richer than I am.)

I stand by what I said about Angels & Demons, but I should have mentioned a counterexample to Dan Brown: an author who writes simple, unabashedly goofy page-turners that sell like hotcakes but are actually readable, with characters who aren't obviously morons, sentences that don't make grown men cry, and messages that are coherent, if not nuanced. One such author is John Grisham, whose books are preachy, ludicrous, and simplistic – but also absorbing and breathlessly entertaining. You scoff, but all the while you're furiously flipping pages.

Grisham's newest, The Associate, has already been tapped for a feature-film adaptation, starring Shia LaBeouf as a Yale Law School grad bound for a low-paying but noble public interest law career but who is blackmailed into taking a prestigious, soul-sucking law firm job by nefarious types who want access to some ultra-secret documents for corporate espionage purposes. The novel covers some of the same ground as Grisham's classic The Firm, except this time grounded in what Grisham perceives as the reality of life for young, bright law school graduates seduced by the high-paying but miserable jobs as associates in corporate law firms. It's hugely silly and hugely entertaining in the best Grisham tradition; with the right director and screenwriter, it could take a place of honor in the less-than-illustrious history of Grisham film adaptations.

He's had the honor of being the on-screen offspring of names like Harrison Ford and Carrie-Anne Moss. He's faced a few different types of robots. And now, well, he's following the likes of Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Matthew McConaughey, and Matt Damon.

Variety reports that Shia LaBeouf is going to star in the next John Grisham flick cooking up at Paramount, The Associate. If it doesn't sound familiar -- that's because it's an upcoming novel slated for release in January. The film will focus on a student (LaBeouf), heading towards graduation at Yale Law School, who somehow gets manipulated into taking a job with a prestigious law firm. This gig gives him "privileged information about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit." After that, I guess thrilling twists ensue.

It looks like the Shia train has no signs of stopping quite yet. Could the fiery world of law do it? I don't know... I liked him more when he was a wee tyke, and I can't picture him as a Yale smartie. Can you?